The Harper code of silence — by the books

This week, Canadians took a moment to remember those who gave their lives so that the rest of us could live in freedom. Remembering how they died isn’t enough; remembering why they died is far more important. And in doing so, we might ask ourselves whether the ‘why’ is being forgotten by the people who need most to remember it.

See if you can guess who said this: “Information is the lifeblood of a democracy. Without adequate access to key information about government policies and programs, citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions and incompetent or corrupt governments can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.”

Those words belong to Stephen Harper, leader of the Official Opposition, writing in the Montreal Gazette the year before he came to power. That Stephen Harper appeared to understand how democracy depends on open access to government information. This Stephen Harper is leading the most secretive government Canada has ever seen.

Maybe he just can’t defend his priorities. How could anyone defend spending millions of dollars to celebrate a century-old war — while slashing services to Canada’s living veterans? Or spending millions of dollars on advertising tax cuts that aren’t even law yet — tax cuts which benefit a small minority of Canadians — while soldiers returned from war suffering from mental health issues can’t get the help they need?

Imagine what we don’t know. For his bestselling book, Party of One, Michael Harris interviewed former auditor general Sheila Fraser, former Commons Speaker Peter Milliken and former information commissioner Robert Marleau — all of whom spoke with one voice about the way Harper controls information.

Seems like most of us agree. A 2013 Ipsos Reid poll found that two-thirds of Canadians believe Harper’s government is too secretive. In 2012, the Harper government won the “Code of Silence” award from the Canadian Association of Journalists.

Finding the right balance on personal information can be difficult; finding the right balance for government information isn’t hard at all. How much we spend on Viagra for soldiers is not a national security issue. Nor is the cost of separating the commissioner of elections from Elections Canada.

In 2011, Harper was found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to share information about the costs of its crime agenda and other programs. In his book 14 Days, former Harper insider Bruce Carson admits that “the actions that led to the finding of contempt and the non-confidence vote are not ones the government should be proud of. Most governments would go out of their way to avoid such findings … But this government was looking for an election.” They knew, in other words, that the contempt vote would not be an issue for the entire election and that voters probably wouldn’t care anyway. It may not have been a proud moment, as Carson says — but they got their majority.

In 2009, Harper prorogued Parliament instead of answering questions about Afghan prisoners. They muzzled government scientists to keep them from telling us about research the public pays for. In his book The War on Science, Chris Turner writes that the Harper government “does not simply ignore the best evidence but attempts to destroy the sources of it — a government that does not merely disregard the advice of experts but prohibits them from speaking about their work in public.”

It’s not that Harper has forgotten the importance of information … other people’s information. Bill C-44 expands the power of CSIS to conduct investigations outside of Canada. Bill C-13, the so called cyber-bullying bill, is designed to help police go after more personal information. S-4, the Digital Privacy Act, allows companies to share personal information without a person’s consent in certain situations. Bill C-31 allows the CRA to share tax information with investigators if they believe it may be evidence of a crime.

Canadians are open to reasonable compromises on our privacy because we understand it’s necessary to protect our communities and our country. Finding the right balance on personal information can be difficult; finding the right balance for government information isn’t hard at all. How much we spend on Viagra for soldiers is not a national security issue. Nor is the cost of separating the commissioner of elections from Elections Canada.

In and of themselves, these issues may not be important to most of us — but the principle behind it is vitally important to the health of our democracy. If we allow a politician to declare something a state secret — or a ‘cabinet confidence’ — just because releasing it would be awkward or embarrassing, what does that say about the state of Canada in 2014?

Ask yourself the next time you see a discarded poppy on the sidewalk: What was that sacrifice for? Was it so that we could have government that values ceremonies over people? A government that keeps information from citizens while passing laws forcing those same citizens to live in a fishbowl?

Honour those sacrifices by asking your government questions. Just don’t expect an answer.

Steve Sullivan has been advocating for victims for almost 20 years, having served as the former president of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime and as the first federal ombudsman for victims of crime. He has testified before numerous parliamentary committees on victims’ rights, justice reform and public safety issues and has conducted training for provincial and federal victim services. He is currently the executive director of Ottawa Victim Services and a part-time professor at Algonquin College in the Victimology Graduate Certificate Program. His views are his own and do not represent any agency with which he is associated.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

24 comments on “The Harper code of silence — by the books”

The one area not explored but I think is just as important is the media’s role in helping to further foster this intolerance for fully informing Canadians. It’s as though Canadians simply exist to pay for all the bills to promote Harper’s cons brand and subsidize all matter of privatizing whims corporations and banks have envisioned in the near future. Yes, the last point can be examined in the numerous newsletters in Europe, the US and many other countries, just not as many, more like a few, in Canada. Take a test, just ask anyone what ISDS means and what ramifications does and will this clause have? The current 2 billion dollars of outstanding lawsuits under NAFTA brought against Canadian taxpayers by foreign-investors that claim an environmental law or an economic domestic law can now be viewed as an illegal cost to said foreign-investor’s means to maximize all possible profits. One interesting observation is that none of these lawsuits are believed to be by any small or medium-sized businesses,as these agreements are solely for multinationals, most of which hail from foreign shores.(especially when it comes to paying taxes).

Our current Prime Minister unfortunately represents everything that is wrong in politics today. Conservative MP”s are terrified of this guy, is this what Canadians voted for, a leader who occupies the highest position of authority in the land, ruling in an environment of fear. What will be next, rumors of a newly built bunker on the hill.

It’s true. And Tony Clement had the gall to stand up in the HoC when questioned about their comms pros (!) and say that the Canadian government was simply trying to better get to know Canadians. I kid you not.

Absolutely right. Allan Gregg has an excellent speech on the net in which he addresses this and other points very well – take a look. It’s entitled “1984 in 2013: The Assault on Reason” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIg_VNUWqME

AND WW1 wasn’t fought for our freedoms and neither was the Boer War. The Boer War was fought so the UK could take the gold fields of South Africa. WW1 was fought so ridiculous people could look important. Canadians had no reason to be there at all, except Ottawa was blackmailed into it by the UK. Gwynne Dyer, who always writes the truth and drives the military and politicians so crazy he can’t get much air time in Canada, has written a book about our wars.. Should be read. Hard to swallow the fact that all those dead young Canadians were just sacrificial cannon fodder for other’s strategic interests. Makes me want to cry for them and promise it will never happen again. Wish journalists would learn their history and stop spouting propaganda.

That is the saddest aspect of their deaths to me. When there wasn’t active conscription, society was such that one couldn’t conceive of not going to war, no matter what the personal or familial cost. Today, enrollment in the military is voluntary. Then, if you didn’t go and didn’t have a valid reason, you and your family risked being pariahs in your own town. Have we left that kind of thinking behind, finally?

The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada finally got back to us after ignoring us for quite some time now. When we first contacted her office they wanted more specific information from us to prove to them that the 30-08 warrants Judge Richard Mosley issued were actually for us. We know they have the security clearance to find out and we know they know the warrants were for us but they keep saying prove it. We sent them the names of the first 2 agents they sent to investigate us in 2008 and they didn’t even acknowledge the agents in any way. They didn’t comment on the agents, they didn’t ask questions about the agents or nothing. They are just ignoring anything we tell them even though they keep asking for more information. The first 2 agents they sent to investigate us in 2008 were our daughters. Our 2 daughters came back home to live with us in 2008 and told us they were working for Canadian Intelligence. They told us the agent that they were working for wanted them to set us up. It has got us worried. We don’t know whether Canadian Intelligence is playing some sort of sick game with us but a stranger approached us out of the blue last year and told us our daughters have been murdered. We have not heard from our 2 daughters since they were sent back home to investigate us for Canadian Intelligence. All The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada is saying to us is prove it. They want us to name names of the Intelligence agents we met in 2008-2009 but they won’t offer us any protection against further assasination attempts against my wife and kids and I even though they know about the previous attempts. We are still being monitored as I write this and we have reason to believe they are using foreign spies from their international coalition. The last thing The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada did was refer us to the recommendations that she made to Parliament on our behalf. The same thing is going on with The Justice Department Of Canada, all they want from us is more information to prove the 30-08 warrants were for us but even though they know about our daughters working as agents for Canadian Intelligence and they know about the poisonings and assasination attempts against us and they know the 30-08 warrants were for us all they are saying now is they don’t have control over the 30-08 warrant information we are looking for against us and they are saying Canadian Intelligence has the information we are looking for. Both agencies have security clearance and they know everything but they are playing dumb but they still want us to name names of the agents we met between 2008-2009 and neither of them are willing to offer us protection against further assasination attemtps against us.
After our daughters left our home when they were done investigating us in 2008 many agents were contacting us in the beginning of 2009 offering us large sums of money if we left Canada for a while. We knew they were trying to get us to leave Canada but not until Judge Richard Mosley decision did we realize why. They were offering us luxury vacations in the sun and basically anything we wanted just to leave Canda for a while. Now we realize it was just a ploy to get their International Coalition involved, we probably would never have been heard from again. They also wanted us to bring our kids along. The good agents were warning us that our life was in danger and they were telling us to move back to British Columbia for our own safety. The local police force would escort us home late at night when we left the downtown area and we always wondered why we were so special. We decided to listen to the good agents and move back to British Columbia for our safety. Just as we were getting ready to move a few agents approached us and offered us $250,000 dollars if we stayed in Ontario. We couldn’t believe it. But we left anyways. Thanks for reading.

The Justice Department Of Canada finally got back to us after ignoring us for over a month. They are now saying they won’t give us our information they have on us to look over, and they told us they will not answer anymore of our requests and to get The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada to investigate why they won’t give us our information. We have contacted The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada numerous times since November 30 2013, the same day the former Privacy Commissioner Of Canada stepped down. We want them to investigate why the The Justice Department Of Canada won’t give us our information, but The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada won’t help us get our information. They keep telling us they need concrete proof for them to investigate to get our information. It doesn’t make sence to us. Since we were told to move back to British Columbia in 2009 from Windsor Ontario for our own safety, we have been kicked out of numerous apartments because of the agents harassment and we have been kicked out of Victoria B.C. and Kamloops B.C. by the police and they are now trying to kick us out of Vancouver British Columbia. They now have 2 apartments around us. They have one beside us and they have one above us. They use both apartments and they are working in shifts. They monitor us from the the above apartment and when the one agent is above us monitoring us the other agent is sleeping in the apartment beside us. Approximately every 12 hours they switch, the one upstairs will move to the lower apartment and rest and the one that is rested will take his place. It has been that way now for over 5 years. We know the agent above us is doing the monitoring because when we start talking about them they will start stomping on the ceiling until we stop talking about them. They will also stomp on the ceiling when we are posting online about them, they will try to block our postings by messing around with our internet and they will start stomping. That is the only time they stomp on the ceiling. They don’t like us talking about them or posting about them. The first assasination attempt against us was in January 2013 when we went to find our one daughter that was working for them to investigate us in 2008. We went back to Windsor Ontario to find her and we were there for a month looking for her but we couldn’t find her. Just before we came back to British Columbia they sent a gunman to murder my family and I. It was later that year in 2013 that a stranger approached us and told us our daughters had been murdered. We are not sure what to do now. We are on Government disability and we cannot afford a lawyer to represent us and the Government won’t give us our information for a lawsuit against them. They won’t let us post on certain forums anymore, not even Craigslist, they keep blocking our posts on there now. In 2008 an agent told us that the Canadian Craigslist servers were controled by the Harper Government. We were told they made a deal with Craig and that Buckmaster guy otherwise they would block them from Canada. Sounds strange to me. They won’t let us post on The Globe And Mail website anymore either. Thanks for reading.

I don’t know why people are not talking more about why the watchdog of CSIS stepped down. Everyone is saying he stepped down because of a conflict of interest over the pipeline even though he was cleared of any ethics violations. My wife and I have filed numerous privacy complaints with the Privacy Commissioners Office Of Canada to investigate the RCMP CSIS and CSEC but they refuse to help us. They also refuse to help us get our information from The Justice Department Of Canada to look over to see if it correct. We first contacted the Privacy Commissioner Of Canada Jennifer Stoddart on November 26 2013 about our case against the RCMP CSIS and CSEC, then we contacted her again on November 28 2013 about our case and that day she changed her mind against BILL C-13, we submitted our case to her on November 30 2013 and that is the same day she stepped down. She was supposed to retire in 2 days after 10 years of service but she stepped down 2 days early because of our case. We read 5 different news articles on November 30 2013 saying she stepped down and when we went back to read those articles 5 news agencies deleted their story about her stepping down early. The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada sent us a letter and tried to tell us that we contacted her on November 19 2013 just before the bill was given to her but that was false, we never contacted her until November 26 2013 and then we contacted her again November 28 2013, and that day she decided against BILL C-13 because of the abuse and assasination attempts against my family and I. I find it strange the same day I revealed online my full complaint against the RCMP CSIS and CSEC the CSIS watchdog stepped down. Something that we also think is strange is when we contacted the Justice Department Of Canada looking for information they announced 2 days later they are appealing the decision from Judge Mosley and then they wanted to know why we wanted the information and where and what time we were going to use the information before they give it to us. Now they are refusing to give us our information and they said they will not answer any more of our requests. Something else we find funny is we don’t have to enable our browser history anymore. We can clear our cache and our browser history and cookies and all and it is being cached somewhere else downstream from our ISP or maybe upstream somewhere. We think it is probably being cached by the spy in the adjacent suite. Thanks for reading.

My wife and I are the two people Justice Richard Mosley was refering to when he ruled CSIS was end running the law. We have been following this decision very closely, we are being spied on right here in Canada. My wife and I and our 3 children have been abused by the RCMP CSIS CSEC and other police forces in Ontario and British Columbia for over 5 years now. I have a mental disability and the police started harassing my family and I when I started using Craigslist 5 years ago, what can I say, we’re swingers. My wife slept with a few of them while I watched. We are not terrorist. It sounds strange but I have been poisoned and my wife has been poisoned for speaking out publicly about the abuse. We have also been assaulted numerous times in the last 5 years. They are listening to us in our bedroom and living room because they let us know by telling us what we are talking about in the privacy of our home. We contacted the BC Human Rights and Civil Rights office last year because the police were trying to run me and my family over on the streets, but they never got back to us. We got a lawyer a couple years ago and the lawyer was able to get them to lay off for a bit. They sent a gunman to murder us last year, we managed to evade him. It also sounds strange but we have a spy monitoring us right now in the adjacent suite to us and they have been there for 15 months now. Since Judge Mosleys decision they quit harassing us but they are still messing around with our internet and phone communications. Thank God for Judge Mosley, I think he saved our lives. We think the reason they are still watching over us is because of what Judge Mosley refered to as “invasive survailence techniques” used against the people who had those warrants issued on them. They don’t want us to tell anyone about the techniques used against us for the last 5 years. Pretty sophisticated alien technology if I do say so myself. Pretty cool actually but we don’t plan on telling anyone. We are patriotic Canadians and we hate terrorist like everyone else but we don’t want to see people abused. Caught up in the fish net so to speak. They have tried to set us up numerous times for arrest over the last 5 years to get their hands on us and make us look like the bad guy’s but we have managed to evade those attempts also.

My wife and I are concerned because Canada Post is being scaled back and it has got us worried. We use open source software for our operating system. In the last 5 years our privacy has been majorly violated. We are most concerned about our communications being sanitized. We no longer have control over who we can make contact with through electronic means. We can only contact people in person for representation so most people not within our city are off limits to us. We realize we are being followed and are being listened to in the privacy of our own home and our home has been entered numerous times when we are not home by intelligence but our means of communications are being sanitized. 5 years ago we noticed rootkits being installed on our operating systems and I was able to set up honey pots and found they were being installed by the military. Since, we switched to virtual machines from static medium verified with sha512sums (DEBIAN KNOPPIX) to get a malware free system each boot. The only website we use is Craigslist and we have met RCMP agents through Craigslist who wanted us to work for them to help them entrap people from terrorist to gangsters. We believe they were just looking for patsies though. I used to work for the RCMP over 20 years ago to infiltrate criminals and make arrests but I quit working for them because they wanted me to set people up that weren’t even breaking the law. For the last 5 years we have used Gmail and we have had numerous internet suppliers and numerous Gmail accounts and we have noticed people we have been emailing and people emailing us have not been getting the emails even though Gmail says they have been sent. We use an SSL connection so our communications are encrypted. The same thing applies to our text messages, we have used Rogers for internet, text and phone for the last 5 years. We have noticed our posting on certains forums are not showing up or they are being deleted as we are writing them right before our eyes or our browsers are being closed as we are writing stuff. Our computers are being shut down and our cell phones are being shut down as we are trying to correspond with people. We have realized that people have been contacting us through our email and our cell phones claiming to be people we know like family members for instance but we know they are imposters. We have tried contacting Human and Civil Rights advocates through electronic means but have had no replies. We have even tried to contact legal representation through electronic means but have never heard anything back over the years. It sounds strange but a gunman was sent to kill us early last year but we managed to evade him. Shortly after that someone tried hiring a hitman through the SILK ROAD website to kill us. At first when the website was taken down by the FBI the owner said the hit was for a father of 3 from Vancouver but later he admitted it was for the whole family of 5, a husband, wife and 3 children. We have been poisoned numerous times in the last 5 years and I have numerous painful swollen lumps throughout my body. Strangers have come up to us on the streets and have told us I have cancer. I went to the emergency room last year because my brain was swelling in my head and my eyes were bulging and I was having severe headaches and the doctor didn’t want to treat me and sent me home. Thanks for reading.

You know what drives me absolutely nutty is the one note song every damned pollster is singing all the time.
You are SO right! They cheated and cheated and lied.
When will Anderson, Nanos, Ipsos, all of them have the decency to ask about what Canadians think
of the legitimacy of this gang?
Are they afraid of a revolt?
Their monotonous silly “who would be the best PM” etc is utterly absurd?
With all the resources they have (and believe me it’s staggering) they could be asking
some very pertinent intelligent provocative questions.
THEN, we might just pay attention.
I have completely abandoned them and am sure I have tons of company!

WHY have we let them get away with their insulting endlessly repetitive and MEANINGLESS
banter????
As Trudeau says over and over, Canadians do deserve better and by God we are going to get it!!!

AS Dylan writes in one of his most eloquent songs, “Most of the Time”
‘ I’m strong enough not to hate.’
Clement pushes all of my buttons by far.
If you take time to really read about him he’s utterly the most cunning duplicitous dangerous and phoney one of the bunch.
He’s Tony Panayi Clement, a Cypriot Jew who calls himself an Orthodox Christian!
In an astonishing moment with the CMA he stunned the women and men by saying that it was the job of his
government to put drug addicts in prison!
That’s a mere beginning.
He has feasted upon our decency and our deep belief in public goodwill with his mean spirited and absurd
‘hipster’ façade for decades.
It’s high time we turf this impostor out for good.
He’s a disgrace to mankind who deserves no place in Canada.

Thanks, but I’m not a Gravol person!
I much prefer to simply face the cold hard truth about this gang of derelicts.
There’s nothing more to say about Panayi (Clement)…but if I had my wish it would be only for
people to scan the backgrounds of these people we have been cursed with.
What a motley lousy crew they are.
I truly had more outstanding classmates in school! Seriously!
They were principled, mannered, gracious, very smart, funny as Hell and very accomplished.
In short, they really cared about society and the goodwill that drives a great people.
Who can say that about any of these dunces?
And in my younger days, no one had any money to speak of…we weren’t poor, but everything meant something…we pooled our efforts and it was a HUGE privilege to get a great education.
We can and will get back to those irreplaceable values I have no doubt, but it will take a bit of time.
Cheers!